Fallen From The Heavens

After I told Rain everything we decide to get extremely serious in our training. We devise a plan based on the information we have thus far. We need to unlock complete area awareness. Even if these pegasi are invisible while they fly, their souls aren't. That's what we need to focus on. How do we sense ones presence. Rain and I start walking towards the exit. I continue to ponder more intensely about this situation. There's got to be something huge playing out. Why would Takitsu willingly share this information with me. Is he trying to scare us with this kid? Either way we need to be prepared. Our destination lies in a place in the plains it's a cavern. On the map it says it's called the Hallow Maw. As we arrive we see the

bones of long-dead beasts line the walls. A single hole in the ceiling allows light to pour in like a spotlight. Around the edges, carvings of animals—wolf, panther, serpent, vulture—all in positions of stillness or hunt.

Oni and Rain stood shoulder to shoulder, bare feet against cold stone.

Before them, a creature emerged from the dark. Not a man. Not quite a beast.

It slithered on two legs, covered in sinew and shadow, eyes glowing yellow.

The boys did not speak.

The creature circled them, sniffing.

Then, it spoke without moving its mouth. The words curled inside their skulls like a hiss.

"My name is Kazin. I have helped demons for many ages. But you breathe like prey."

The creature pulled a piece of rotting meat from the way it came in.

The air instantly stank of death and copper.

"You must find the clean breath within the filth. You must learn to inhale without alerting the wind. This is the breath that draws the world inside."

The boys were forced to kneel in the rancid chamber for hours, drawing slow, silent inhales through their noses. Any sound, and the instructor struck them with a cane carved from bone.

Oni gagged the first five times.

Rain passed out once.

But they learned.

Breathe in deep and slow, not through the chest, but the belly. Expand the ribs like a beast sniffing prey. Feel the pulse of the world in the air. Smell everything. Hear everything. This technique is known as Predators Inhale.

"A predator inhales knowledge. The prey exhales fear."

They were placed beneath a hanging web of bones. Hanging chimes made from teeth.

"Exhale too fast, and your breath will shake the bones." Says Kazin

Oni was trembling by this point. Rain's body was stiff with tension. But they had to control it.

They sat for hours, breathing in slow through their noses… then exhaling with absolute control through slightly parted lips. No sound. Not even fog in the cold air.

Only when they could blow across a feather without it falling did they succeed. This technique is called Silent exhale.

They were taken to a pit. In it: a starving mutant ape with black veins and no eyes.

"You will die unless you summon strength."

They were forced to enter the pit one at a time, unarmed. The ape was chained, but the chains were weak.

This was the only breath that wasn't silent. The Beast Surge was about flooding the body with power.

Short, fast inhales. Rapid exhales. Filling the lungs until the veins screamed.

Oni entered first. He circled the beast, breathing faster and faster until the world slowed around him. His muscles burned. His eyes sharpened.

The Mark of the Beast on his chest pulsed—and in that moment, he could see where the creature would strike before it moved.

Rain entered next—and nearly got mauled. But when he screamed, his breath turned cold, and his spine twisted like a snake's. He dodged inhumanly. The breath saved him.

"The dead do not breathe." Hisses Kazin.

They were buried alive.

Each in a box. No room to move. No light. No sound.

Their task: hold their breath for as long as they could, then longer.

Every time they gasped, the box filled with smoke.

This was not training—it was rebirth.

Oni counted his heartbeats. Rain meditated on silence.

Eventually… they stopped breathing. Not from death. But from control.

Their minds went blank. Their bodies went still. The box opened on its own.

They had learned to vanish from the world. This technique is called Hallow Lung.

When they emerged from the Hollow Maw, the beast-instructor Kazin bowed—not in respect, but in warning.

"You now carry the breath of monsters. Do not waste it. You will now continue to the next stages movement and stealth training." We then follow Kazin as he takes us to a stone ravine beneath the cliffs of Pangea. The ground is broken into jagged pathways, narrow tunnels, and thin ledges. Black vines coil around every surface. The sun never touches this place. The only light comes from faint, violet crystals embedded in the walls—each one pulsing like a heartbeat.

Oni and Rain stood barefoot at the edge of a descent. Below them, the ground sloped into shadow.

Kazin watched from above, arms crossed, face carved from obsidian focus.

"Down there," he said, voice like gravel soaked in blood, "are six sentries. Gargoyle spirits carved from stone and command. They are blind. But they listen."

He tossed a bone needle down the ravine.

It barely clicked against a stone.

The earth shuddered—and one of the gargoyles turned its head.

"Make a sound, and they will wake. You run, you die. You fight, you die. You move like prey… and you are meat."

Oni dropped first, landing low. His muscles coiled on instinct. He remembered the panther statue from the Hollow Maw—the low walk, spine curved, weight on the balls of his feet. He pressed his fingers to the ground, spreading them wide.

Every step was thoughtless.

Every breath was practiced.

He moved like he had lived here.

Behind him, Rain hesitated. His movements were too upright, too careful—like a human trying to pretend.

A stone crumbled beneath his foot.

Click.

Kazin didn't shout. He didn't move.

But Oni did.

He reached back, grabbed Rain by the collar, and yanked him down behind a crumbled wall of bone just as one of the gargoyle heads turned.

Rain's breath caught. His heartbeat sounded like thunder in his chest.

Oni whispered, "Breathe through the stomach. Breathe through the earth. They hear the fear."

Rain nodded, trying.

The path split. Oni took the tunnel.

It was narrow, barely enough for his shoulders. His fingers brushed the walls. He crept like a serpent, spine rippling with each motion. He did not drag his feet. He placed them.

He became movement.

In one section, the floor crumbled beneath him—but he pivoted, catching a vine mid-fall. His body swung silently into a crouch.

Above, Kazin said nothing. But his eye flicked once toward the violet crystal near Oni's head.

It pulsed brighter.

The Mark on Oni's chest tingled.

Rain followed the other path—a shallow corridor filled with echoing stone.

He didn't move poorly. But he didn't move like Oni.

His hands brushed too much. His exhale was too forceful.

A gargoyle's head twisted in the dark.

Rain panicked.

He ran.

Stone wings cracked open. The sound split the cavern.

"Stupid," Kazin growled. "Do not run. Only prey runs."

Oni heard the sound. He didn't hesitate.

He scaled a wall like a spider, using vines and loose rock, launching across the ridge, and dropped between Rain and the gargoyle mid-flight.

Oni snarled—not like a boy, but like an animal.

His lips peeled back. His Mark glowed faint red. The gargoyle froze, sensing a greater predator.

Kazin watched in silence, then finally spoke:

"Good. You're becoming what you were meant to be. But next time—let the weak be consumed."

Rain sat alone, bleeding from his arm, breath ragged.

Oni crouched nearby, staring into the dark. He didn't speak.

Kazin approached only Oni.

"You walk like a creature now. But you still think like a man. That will kill you."

Oni clenched his fist.

"Then teach me how to think like a beast."

Kazin smirked. "I'm not here to teach you. I'm here to watch you die and see what crawls out of your corpse."

He turned to Rain, who flinched under his gaze.

"You're not ready. But you'll learn, or you'll be fertilizer."

We are then taken to a sealed cavern beneath Kazin's domain, known only as The Red Hollow. Its walls pulse faintly with fleshy, organic veins that lead to a central altar carved into the shape of a wolf's skull. The air smells of rust and fire.

There are no doors. No light source. Only the red glow of the glyphs on the ground—and the silence of the dead.

Kazin stands between Oni and Rain, arms folded.

"Inside this chamber, you will meet what's left of the human you used to be," he says. "Some beg. Some scream. Others try to make deals."

He steps back, fading into the stone.

"There's only one rule: If you hesitate, it consumes you."

The floor beneath them shifts. The two boys fall through darkness, separated.

Rain landed hard, gritting his teeth. He rolled to his feet, instantly drawing his Uzuka, the blade shimmering with pale blue veins. The weapon hummed in his hand, sensing unease.

The cavern was quiet.

Then—he heard crying.

A child stepped from the shadows.

It was him.

But smaller. Softer. No scars. No sword.

The younger Rain trembled, clutching a wooden toy sword.

"You don't have to fight, you know," the boy said. "We can just go home. Mom's probably still looking for us."

Rain tightened his grip on his Uzuka. "That's not real."

"Maybe not. But you're not ready either."

The boy raised the wooden sword—and it transformed. Now it was an Uzuka, just like Rain's. But heavier. Flickering with unstable magic.

The boy rushed him.

Rain blocked, staggering back from the force. The boy's strikes were wild but filled with purpose.

"You don't deserve the sword," the illusion hissed. "You only swing it because you're scared of being weak."

Rain fell to a knee. The boy raised his blade—but Rain surged forward, channeling his breathing, the Silent Strike Exhale.

"I am weak," Rain whispered. "But I'm learning to survive."

He drove his Uzuka upward.

The illusion shattered like glass.

Rain stood alone again, the blade glowing brighter than before.

Behind him, a faint mark formed at the base of his neck—faint silver, the shape of a serpent's eye.

Oni awoke in a room made of mirrors.

Each reflection showed him—young, older, bloodied, burning, dead.

But one reflection stepped out.

It was him—but fully human. No mark on his chest. Eyes wide with fear. Shoulders slumped.

The human Oni held nothing. No weapons. No rage. Just a voice.

"We weren't supposed to end up here."

Oni said nothing.

"You remember your real name?" the boy asked. "The one before you were called Oni?"

Oni's fists clenched.

"You remember your mother's voice? Or did Kazin take that from you too?"

The human stepped forward. "We're still human inside. We don't have to become monsters."

Oni's chest burned.

The Mark of the Beast blazed red-hot, veins spidering out across his ribs like claws.

"You're not real," Oni said.

The human smiled weakly. "That's what makes me dangerous."

Suddenly, the reflection twisted. The human Oni transformed—his limbs snapping backward, his smile stretching unnaturally wide. His body turned into a twisted parody of Oni's beast-form—eyes hollow, claws too long, chest split open.

It charged.

Oni didn't breathe. He unleashed.

He roared—a deep, guttural sound not of this world. His body moved on its own, claws growing over his fingers, his pupils slitting. He grabbed the monster by the throat and ripped it open.

The beast screamed like a child.

Then silence.

As the echoes faded, Oni looked down. His chest glowed. The Mark had evolved—now more defined, shaped like a wolf's fanged jaw, with eyes etched in blood-light.

He had killed the human.

Rain and Oni returned to the Red Hollow, dropped like ash from above. Kazin stood waiting.

He studied them both.

"You're not boys anymore," he said.

He looked at Rain—silent, sword steady, a faint serpent mark behind his neck.

"You might survive after all."

He turned to Oni, whose chest still glowed faintly beneath his skin.

"And you…" Kazin's eyes narrowed. "…you've finally stopped pretending to be human. Tomorrow we will attack the Black Pegasus so get some rest and in the morning be prepared to go when the dew is still on the grass and the fog is still there."

The next morning we continue as Kazin said we would when we arrived. We looked at the golden grass stretching endlessly in every direction, broken only by bones. The Plains of the Lion. The kingdom of the hunt. The air was thick with tension, charged like the moment before a lightning strike.

Oni and Rain stood at the edge of the field, Kazin behind them, silent.